VIDEOS & PHOTOSTREAM: CEOs For Cities & Artprize in Grand Rapids, MI

Three phenomena drew us to Grand Rapids, Michigan, as September turned into October, 2013.

First, Artprize was in the middle of its 19-day happening all over the 3 square miles of Downtown Grand Rapids, featuring 1500 works of art in over 200 venues: sculpture, installation, visual art, text-based work, performance, and some art work with no definition. It was a city-wide project sponsored by city fathers (Amway & Steelcase are HQ’ed there) that generated 446,850 votes by the same number of visitors to award a top public vote prize of $200,000, plus other public and juried awards totaling $560,000. That will get the attention of artists. And through them, the community. All aided by a useful mobile app. See our PHOTOSTREAM here.

Next, CEOs For Cities decided to bring their annual meeting to Grand Rapids, focusing on The Collaborative City, with keynote by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh (see our video interview here), and talks by urbanists such as Bruce Katz from Brookings (see our video interview here), who often refers to Cleveland and other urban centers. Other sessions discussed how art catalyzes community engagement, how China takes over economic leadership, and a session honoring “City Changemakers” highlighting Milwaukee, Memphis, Philadelphia and Detroit.

Finally, Lee Fisher, former Lieutenant Governor of Ohio who now serves as the CEO & President of CEOs For Cities (see our interview here), did an excellent job of reaching out to numerous NEO thought leaders, scheduling some of them to talk or lead sessions at the meeting, or just inviting them to attend. NEO held a significant caucus in Grand Rapids, including most of the diversity in the session.

While it moves around to hot cities each year (it has been held recently in Boston & Chicago) their annual fall meeting will take place in Cleveland in 2014. Get ready to engage.

http://www.CEOsForCities.org

http://www.Artprize.org

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